Toddlers and life in the countryside

So let me preface this by saying that both J and I adore C, she is amazing and we are so proud of her. However, at the same time she is a big pain in the bum. I don’t think it’s personal to her, I think all toddlers seem to go through this phase. There are now a good number of outside chores to be done daily and obviously trying to do them all after C has gone to bed can sometimes prove a challenge. She gets very excited about checking if there are any eggs (which I have to say is also one of my favourite chores) and then also checking if there are any poos which of course there inevitably are. So we can generally combine topping up food and water and socialising with the chickens with egg collection. I should point out that socialising with the chickens takes on a whole new meaning as a toddler it basically means trying to force feed them whatever she can find, mainly sticks or leaves, and then chasing them to try and stroke them. The girls are very tolerant of her although they do tend to run away from her at first, hopefully they’ll slowly start coming round to her.

However, C is less keen on venturing towards the field. Particularly the hose. Now that means that my options are to either drag her to the field under duress which just results in lots of screaming and crying or leaving her in the house plonked in front of the TV whilst I dash back and forth between the field and back to the house to check on her. Does this make me a bad parent? Or is it sometimes a case of needs must? There’s no doubt that completing the work on the cottage and garden would be so much easier without her but we are doing the work here to create our family home and to give C the upbringing that we want for her. Once we have some gates I will feel better about leaving her in one part of the garden whilst I dash to the other. And when the extension is done on the cottage then the kitchen will overlook the recreation area so C can be out playing whilst I’m inside cooking the dinner. That’s the kind of idyllic future I’m hoping for at least. How on earth do other people manage to manage the conflicting pulls of work, parenting and household chores.

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